rhetorical devices i have a dream'' speech annotated pdf

“I Have A Dream”: Annotated

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s iconic speech, annotated with relevant scholarship on the literary, political, and religious roots of his words.

For this month’s Annotations, we’ve taken Martin Luther King, Jr.’s iconic “I Have A Dream” speech, and provided scholarly analysis of its groundings and inspirations—the speech’s religious, political, historical and cultural underpinnings are wide-ranging and have been read as jeremiad, call to action, and literature. While the speech itself has been used (and sometimes misused) to call for a “color-blind” country, its power is only increased by knowing its rhetorical and intellectual antecedents.      

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation . This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.

But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now . This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred .

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream .

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted , every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood . With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

Weekly Newsletter

Get your fix of JSTOR Daily’s best stories in your inbox each Thursday.

Privacy Policy   Contact Us You may unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the provided link on any marketing message.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

For dynamic annotations of this speech and other iconic works, see The Understanding Series from JSTOR Labs .

Support JSTOR Daily! Join our new membership program on Patreon today.

JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students. JSTOR Daily readers can access the original research behind our articles for free on JSTOR.

Get Our Newsletter

More stories.

• Harvey Houses: Serving the West

• Pakistan’s Ambiguous Islamic Identity

Zheng He, the Great Eunuch Admiral

Fredric Wertham, Cartoon Villain

Recent posts.

• MeerKAT: The South African Radio Telescope That’s Transformed Our Understanding of the Cosmos
• Building Classroom Discussions around JSTOR Daily Syllabi
• Medieval Whalers, Smart Plants, and Space Mines

Support JSTOR Daily

Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

Martin Luther King Jr Speech Analysis - Rhetoric

Related Papers

Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric

Andre E . Johnson

Ebony A . Utley

Traditional conceptions of rhetorical ethos treat character exclusively as an instru- ment of persuasion, but the persona of the rhetor often functions as a means of con- stituting the self in relation to a complex network of social and cultural relationships. This generative function of character becomes especially important in cases where suppressed groups attempt to find rhetorical means to alter their cir- cumstances. Using Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” as a case study, we argue that the text develops a complex and nuanced construction of King’s character. This construct allows King to criticize his target audience without alienating himself from it and also allows the “eavesdropping” black audience to discover a model for reconstructing their own sense of agency. This constitutive dimension of character occurs simultaneously and in intimate connection with its use as an instrument of persuasion concerning specific issues. Based on this case, we argue that rigid distinctions between instrumental and constitutive functions of rhetoric are misleading and that rhetorical critics should regard the constitution of self and the instrumental uses of character as a fluid relationship.

Carla Sampayo

JEES (Journal of English Educators Society)

mas darul ihsan

There are so many speeches delivered by such famous people in this world. But, if we are asked to give the point of view about the impact of each speech delivered then the speech from Martin Luther King Jr. will convey the high meaning in term of rethorical speech especially the content and the context about the concepts of repetition found. The speech was on 28th of August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C in a verbal ways and its text become the secondary data to be analyzed with much focus on emphasizing phrases, words or sentences. By using the concept of rethoric perspective through repetition such as anaphora, epistrophe and epizeuzis, the researcher wants to know the values behind the repetition. That is why, the analysis is using the descriptive qualitative research on taking the secondary data that has been adapted from the video and the text of the speech itself. The conclusion especially on the ideas of repetition are that Martin Luther King Jr. tries to make ...

drone rogan

Sébastien Abbet

An essay which deal with two MLK's speechs: the 1963's "I Have a Dream" and the 1967's "Beyond Vietnam". The text's purpose is to show, on the one hand, continuity in MLK social and political vision but, on the other hand and above all, the will to go beyond civil rights to an new alliance against the war and for social justice has shown with the "Poor People's Campaign".

International Journal of Early Childhood Special Education

mutar naser

The effect(s) of delivery style may be in the form of punctuation and accentuation of speech, or they may be of subtler nature like adding emotion and force to utterance(s). This article then, investigates the position of paralinguistic factors: pace of delivery, pitch, intensity and pause pattern in King Martin Luther’s speech “Have a Dream” in political context. These factors carry attitude, psychological condition and emotional state of the speaker to the audience and affect their attitudes and emotions. These factors have been called the factors of delivery style because they can be used only in spoken language. These factors are the physical properties of speech and thus they are observable. These factors, thenwill be analyzed and studied with the help of van Dijk Model of CDA to answer To what extent the ideology of Martin Luther King Jr is reflected through the paralinguistic choices “I Have Dream”. In terms of the findings, the analysis found that persuasion is not the resul...

Aslam Sipra

The article presents the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of the first part of King Martin Luther’s speech “When I Have a Dream” in socio-political context. The study investigates how it lies on the basis of application of Fairclough version of CDA in the first part of the text. Moreover, it explicates the terms like social, cultural and political inequalities in the light of text and framework.

Aishwarya Moothan

RELATED PAPERS

Etno-kulturološki zbornik/Ethno-cultural Annals

aleksandar bulatovic , Ognjen Mladenović , Maja Gajic Kvascev

Klemens Kappel

Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und Kunde der Älteren Kirche

Christopher M Hays

Collection de l'Ecole française de Rome

Claudia Moatti

in: "Anthropological Materialism", 2012. <http://anthropologicalmaterialism. hypotheses.org/2016>.

The Journal of Membrane Biology

Aritri Dutta

Journal of Synchrotron Radiation

Yaw-Wen Yang

Transfusion

Jurnal ORTOPEDAGOGIA

Mohammad Efendi

Marina Vuksa

Jean-Frédéric Ouvry

Archaeometriai Műhely

Attila Péntek

JUTI: Jurnal Ilmiah Teknologi Informasi

endah purwanti

International Journal of Computer Applications

Aminu Ahmad

Goldschmidt2021 abstracts

punjehl crane

Music Therapy

Laurie Rugenstein

The Transport and Communications Science Journal

Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry

John Beutler

Janusz Rogula

Advances in Animal and Veterinary Sciences

Dr.Richa Khirbat

Oğuz-Türkmen Araştırmaları Dergisi

ferruh kayalan

Research Square (Research Square)

Miriam Postan

Forensic Science International

Silvana R condemi

Annals of the Polish Association of Agricultural and Agribusiness Economists

Wioletta Wrzaszcz

East African Medical Journal

Lucy Namkinga

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

I Have a Dream Speech

Martin luther king, jr., ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

"I Have A Dream": Annotated

For this month’s Annotations, we’ve taken Martin Luther King, Jr.’s iconic “I Have A Dream” speech, and provided scholarly analysis of its groundings and inspirations—the speech’s religious, political, historical and cultural underpinnings are wide-ranging and have been read as jeremiad, call to action, and literature. While the speech itself has been used (and sometimes misused) to call for a “color-blind” country, its power is only increased by knowing its rhetorical and intellectual antecedents.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation . This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.

But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now . This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end,...

Welcome To The Writer’s Relief Blog Archive!

Here’s a special collection of posts from the writer’s relief, self-publishing relief, and web design relief blogs. whether you’re searching for writing advice, inspiration, writing submission tips, self-publishing insights, or author website ideas and strategies, you’ll find lots of great information and guidance for your publishing journey, the funniest letter template for your writing life | writer’s relief.

The life of a writer can be busy, busy, busy! Along with your everyday tasks, you have ideas to come up with, red pens to buy, edits to write…and rewrite…and rewrite, and then submissions to send out to literary agents and editors. There’s simply no time to sit down...

How Great Writing Is Like Jazz Music | Writer’s Relief

Intriguing combinations, riveting complexity, lots of creativity: You could be describing a remarkable poem, short story, or novel…or great jazz music. While listening to a jazz playlist can help inspire your writing sessions, the submission strategists at Writer’s...

10 Poetry Collections For National Poetry Month | Writer’s Relief

April is National Poetry Month, which has grown into a worldwide celebration of poetry and its significance in society and culture. With more and more mainstream readers discovering the power of poetry, we here at Writer’s Relief have put together a list of 10 poetry...

Here’s What’s Currently Cringy In Poetry Trends | Writer’s Relief

April is National Poetry Month, so many readers and writers are focusing their attention on the latest trends in poetry. According to this article Writer’s Relief found on LitHub.com, some of these developments are downright cringy, and the blame seems to land at the...

Spring Cleaning: What To Toss From Your Writing | Writer’s Relief

Spring cleaning usually makes you think of mopping floors, wiping down windows, or raking out the flower beds. But at Writer’s Relief, spring cleaning means dusting off the red pen and putting a shine on your poetry, short story, personal essay, or novel! Here’s what...

The Edible Book Festival Puts Words In Your Mouth | Writer’s Relief

If you enjoy puns, you’ll really enjoy the Edible Book Festival. Created by librarian and writer Judith Hoffberg and artist Béatrice Caron, the only rule of the Edible Book Festival is to create book-related, edible art. In this article Writer’s Relief found on...

What Is Subtext And Why Should You Write It? | Writer’s Relief

You’ve probably read stories where the characters’ actions are all explained, leaving no room for interpretation. For example, if a character is sad about Grandma skipping town with the winning lottery ticket, do you know it because the writer told you so, or because...

March Sadness Madness: Choosing The Saddest Book Ever | Writer’s Relief

If you’re tired of basketball’s March Madness, there’s another bracket competition that might interest you. In this article Writer’s Relief found on ElectricLiterature.com, you can vote to help choose the saddest book ever written! Voting has already started: Will the...

Using Sensitive Language: Sexism and Sentences With They, His, and Her | Writer’s Relief

As society becomes more conscious of racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, and transphobia, it’s important to choose words that do not unknowingly spread harmful ideas. Writer’s Relief has discussed the significance of gender-neutral language in writing, but it’s also...

Spring Writing Prompts: Awaken Your Creativity! | Writer’s Relief

If your muse has spent the winter months burrowed under thick blankets, it’s time for a wakeup call! Even the sleepiest muse won’t be able to resist this spring-themed inspiration. Writer’s Relief has put together the best visual spring writing prompts to awaken your...